Your Right to Know

WASHINGTON — A bill to curb the ability of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to set
limits on carbon emissions from power plants cleared a hurdle in the House of Representatives
yesterday but faces bleak prospects of becoming law.

The Republican-controlled House passed the bill by a 229-183 vote, but the Senate, in which
Democrats hold a majority, has no timetable to consider the legislation. President Barack Obama
already has threatened to veto the bill.

Rep. Ed Whitfield, R-Ky., said the bill is a “reasonable alternative” to proposed
carbon-emission standards by the EPA for new power plants and forthcoming rules to limit pollution
from the country’s existing power plants.

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said the bill is “part of the Republicans’ ongoing attack on the
Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Air Act authority to address carbon pollution.”

The EPA in September proposed a rule that says any future coal plants built in the U.S. must be
able to emit at a rate of no more than 1,100 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt hour, far below
an estimated 1,700 to 1,900 lbs/MWh for the most-efficient plants in operation.

The agency is due to release by June what will be the centerpiece of Obama’s climate strategy —
emissions standards for the country’s more than 1,000 power plants, the bulk of which burn
coal.

Whitfield said on the House floor yesterday the bill would give “the flexibility to build a
coal-fired plant in America” if natural gas, which is currently cheap compared with coal, gets more
expensive.

The bill, crafted by Whitfield and Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., would repeal any greenhouse-gas
standards the EPA develops for power-plant emissions and would require congressional approval
should the agency enact regulations targeting the country’s existing power plants.

Manchin, who will try to steer the measure through the Senate, said the bill is a “reasonable
response” to the EPA’s rule-making and would set a realistic standard for coal plants.